Setting policies toward territories involved in protracted conflicts poses an ongoing challenge for governments, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Since there are multiple zones of disputed territories and occupation around the globe, setting policy toward one conflict raises the question of whether similar policies will be enacted toward others. Where different policies are implemented, the question arises: On what principle or toward what goal are the differences based?

Territorial conflicts have existed throughout history. But the establishment of the United Nations, whose core principles include the inviolability of borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force to change them, led to the proliferation of protracted conflicts. Previously, sustained control over territory led to eventual acceptance of the prevailing power’s claims to sovereignty. Today, the United Nations prevents recognition of such claims but remains largely incapable of influencing the status quo, leaving territories in an enduring twilight zone. Such territories include, but are not limited to: Crimea, Donbas, Northern Cyprus, the West Bank, Kashmir, The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, and Western Sahara.3

The problem is not simply that the United Nations, United States, European Union, private corporations, and NGOs act in a highly inconsistent manner. It is that their policies are selective and often reveal biases that underscore deeper problems in the international system. For example, Russia occupies territories the United States and European Union recognize as parts of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, yet Crimea is the only Russian-occupied territory subject to Western sanctions. By contrast, products from Russian-controlled Transnistria enter the United States as products of Moldova, and the European Union allows Transnistria to enjoy the benefits of a trade agreement with Moldova. The United States and European Union demand specific labeling of goods produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and prohibit them from being labeled Israeli products. Yet products from Nagorno-Karabakh – which the United States and European Union recognize as part of Azerbaijan – freely enter Western markets labeled as products of Armenia.

Today, several occupying powers try to mask their control by setting up proxy regimes, such as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) or similar entities in Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh. While these proxies do not secure international recognition, the fiction of their autonomy benefits the occupier. By contrast, countries that acknowledge their direct role in a territorial dispute tend to face greater external pressure than those that exercise control by proxy.

Some territorial disputes have prompted the forced expulsion or wartime flight of the pre-conflict population. A related issue is the extent to which the occupier has allowed or encouraged its own citizens to become settlers. While one might expect the international system to hold less favorable policies toward occupiers that drive out residents and build settlements, this is not the case. Armenia expelled the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, yet the United States and European Union have been very lenient toward Armenia. They have also been lenient toward Morocco, which built a 1,700-mile long barrier to protect settled areas of Western Sahara and imported hundreds of thousands of settlers there. Against this backdrop, the constant pressure to limit Israeli settlement in the West Bank is the exception, not the rule.

This pressure is even more difficult to grasp given that Israel’s settlement projects in the West Bank consist of newly built houses. In most other conflict zones, such as Northern Cyprus and Nagorno-Karabakh, settlers gained access to the homes of former residents.

This study aims to provide decision makers in government as well as in the private sector with the means to recognize double standards. Such standards not only create confusion and reveal biases, but also constitute a business and legal risk. New guidelines for making consistent policy choices are therefore sorely needed.

An Increasingly Polarized Georgia: What Should America Do?

Georgia has entered an election year with an extremely polarized political environment. In 2019, the ruling Georgian Dream party promised and advertised a move to a proportional electoral system with a zero threshold for parliamentary representation. Its reversal of this decision in November caused significant political turmoil, and led a significant pro-Western fraction to leave the ruling party. The otherwise fractured opposition is now consolidated in its demand for electoral reforms, putting the legitimacy of the election process in question. At several earlier times, the U.S. has taken a role to assist Georgia in difficult times like this. Could it do so again? Should it?

Is there a grand strategy that informs Russia’s activities abroad and, if so, what is it? For years it seemed that President Putin based his foreign policy mainly on his 2005 statement to the Russian nation that the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” The task of Russian policy was therefore to reclaim by whatever means necessary as much control over former Soviet territories as possible. This led to his seizure of Georgian territory in 2008, his Crimean grab of 2014, and his armed incursions into eastern Ukraine in 2014-2019. More recently, it has led to his forcing Kyrgyzstan to join his politics-driven Eurasian Economic Union and his current bullying of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to follow suit.

In practice, Russia’s foreign moves in places as diverse as Eastern Europe, Syria, and Africa seem to be guided more by opportunism than strategy. This has not sat well with some members of Moscow’s policy-oriented intelligentsia. Modern Russia, after all, is heir to a half millennium of messianic ideologies that justified and encouraged the expansion of territories under Moscow’s rule. Whether building the Third Rome, destroying the Tatars, placing the Cross of St. Vladimir atop the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, building a Holy Alliance against future Napoleons, protecting Europe against revolution in 1848, conquering Muslim Central Asia in the 1860s, or aspiring to Sovietize Eastern Europe under Stalin, ideas, not mere opportunism, have driven Russia’s actions abroad. Even as Putin repeated his assertion about the collapse of the USSR, a deficit of theory was forming in Moscow’s foreign policy circles.

Among the first to seek to fill this was the complex, vexed, and hyperactive strategist Alexander Dugin. An Orthodox Christian of Old Believer ancestry, Dugin favors decentralization and self-government within Russia but champions an aggressive foreign policy that would link “orthodox” Russia with “orthodox” Muslims and “orthodox” Hindus in a war against secularism as such. As recently as his visit to Washington a decade ago, he expressed no particular animus against the US and instead focused his venom on wayward Europe. Bluntly, Dugin wanted Moscow to turn its back on a debauched Europe and reorient Russia towards the East.

Now a new grand strategy along these lines has emerged and captured the imagination of many members of Moscow’s geostrategic circles. Like Dugin, Alexander III, and predecessors going back to Zosimus, Metropolitan of Moscow in 1492, the cornerstone of this new concept is the foursquare rejection of Europe. But unlike its predecessors, the new concept, grandly called “Greater Eurasia,” defines Russia as an equal partner with China and dreams of a future in which Russia and China would join forces with India and thereby become the dominant world power. For Russia to fulfill this grand destiny, it must first reject Europe and become an Asian political and economic power. The key to achieving this goal is to develop Siberia as a transport corridor to the East and as an economic powerhouse in its own right.

The concept of a Greater Eurasia arose steadily after about 2008. The term appears to have arisen as a rejoinder to Western proposals in that period for a “Greater Central Asia.” Since 2015 the tempo has increased, with a proliferation of articles, books, symposia, and conferences. Indeed, the Greater Eurasia industry, in its many variants, is now the epicenter of geostrategic thinking in Moscow. It has also caught the attention of a number of astute Western analysts, who have already given us valuable overviews and studies on the subject.

Champions of the notion of a “Greater Eurasia” consider that the greatest challenge involved in developing the concept is to overcome physical distance on the Eurasian land mass; in other words, to master the geography. It is therefore not surprising that the venerable Russian Geographical Society would devote a 375-page special edition of its journal, Questions of Geography, to the general subject. Based on a conference held by the Higher School of Economics entitled “Russia’s Place in the Greater Eurasia Now Being Formed,” this is, for the time being, Russia’s definitive statement on the subject. All of the twenty-five writers are Russians.

According to authors D.V. Suslov and A.S. Piatachkova, the concept of Greater Eurasia is “undoubtedly one of the most important narratives of international relations development of the first half of the twenty-first century.” Having made this ringing declaration, Suslov and Piatachkova then acknowledge that, “There is no consensus in the scientific or expert community regarding its meaning.” Either the emperor is wearing an entire wardrobe or, perish the thought, he has no clothes. Here, for better or worse, is the definition offered by our two lead writers:

“…a regional or macroregional international community constructed through interaction. It is based not on history or civilizational proximity or even on the number of economic projects and interdependence, but on the special quality and intensity of political relations between its constituent states, first of all between China and Russia.”

Note the stress on political relations. There is not a trace of Marxism or even of economics in this formulation, no mention of any productive forces that might be driving the two powers together. Nor do the champions of Greater Eurasia claim that it is based on any cultural affinity. In a striking departure from Dugin, another author in the volume, T. V. Bordachev, states baldly that there are no historical or cultural affinities between Russia and China that might underlie such a partnership. But was it not precisely the supposed historical and cultural divide between Russia and Western Europe that sent Russia on its eastward quest in the first place? Unfortunately, our Moscow experts fail to tell us whether they do, or do not, consider culture and history relevant to grand strategy. They want it both ways, as convenient.

Sergei Karaganov, Dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs of the National Research University, chairman of Putin’s Valdai Club, and one of the most ardent champions of Greater Eurasia, disagrees with Bordachev’s denial that the concept has any cultural or historical basis. In a line straight out of the pioneer Eurasianists of the 1920s, Karaganov proclaims that Greater Eurasia, once implemented, will create an “Asia for the Asians.” One wonders how Pushkin, Turgenev, Checkhov, or Mikhail Bulgakov might have viewed this curious boast from a Russian chauvinist whose surname has a Turkic root!

The one thing that all writers in this volume agree upon is that Greater Eurasia will come into being through the merging of China’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). However, the gross imbalance of demography and economic productivity between these two entities creates a problem for Moscow. To bulk up its EEU, Russia must persuade, cajole, or bully sovereign states in Central Asia and the Caucasus to join, which it is fact doing. Such strong-arm methods cause those on the receiving end to act more out of fear than conviction. President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, long a champion of economic collaboration with Russia, did not inform even his own staff of his intentions in 2014 when he rushed off to Moscow to sign the EEU agreement. Kyrgyzstan’s president in 2015 stated publicly that he chose “the lesser of two evils” but later reported how Moscow had virtually bludgeoned him into joining. The Armenians, dependent on military aid from Moscow in its fight with Azerbaijan over Karabakh, had no choice in the matter. Uzbekistan is now in Moscow’s sights, and has agreed to enter EEU with observer status for five years. Should Uzbekistan actually join, it will leave Tajikistan with no choice but to follow suit, and will expose Afghanistan to the same pressures as its northern neighbors.

Besides the weakness of its EEU in comparison with China’s SCO, Moscow worries about the growing military disparity between itself and Beijing. Acknowledging that China has military agreements with all of Russia’s continental allies while Russia’s military ties with countries in East and Southeast Asia are weak, authors V. B. Kashin and A. I. Druzhinin call for a major initiative to expand Russia’s military presence in Asia. Specifically, they want the Russian navy to focus on ASEAN countries, opening bilateral ties and building bases there. This may not bridge the stark imbalance of power between Moscow and Beijing but it will begin to address one of Moscow’s most gnawing concerns.

Russia is bound to be the junior partner in any relationship with China. Russia’s Greater Eurasia enthusiasts know this, and have therefore begun dreaming about adding a third element to the structure, namely, India. Hoping to build on Moscow-New Delhi ties dating back to Soviet times, they fantasize about a grand triad that will dominate global affairs. But one little problem remains, namely the gulf between the political systems of India and China. Andrei Kortunov deftly addresses this disparity (which he calls a “schism”) by suggesting that China might handle relations with authoritarian countries worldwide while India could handle the partnership’s relations with democracies. One wonders what role is left for Russia.

Besotted by this grand but bizarre fantasy, Russia’s experts predict that the alliance between Russia, China, and India will become a powerful force for peace on earth. The two main editors of the volume, D. V. Suslov and A. S. Piatkovskaia, solemnly declare that the triad of which they dream will become “a huge resource for solving the region’s problems, including terrorism, extremism, the problem of Afghanistan and even the India-Pakistan conflict.”

If power can be measured by the number of signed agreements, then these enthusiasts have a point. An expanding web of formalistic documents already link EEU members to Russia and to each other. Impressive on paper, these may prove to be as insubstantial as the documents that led to the formation of Moscow’s Commonwealth of Independent States in December, 1991. Far more concrete are the many investments and grants from China that have created bonds between Beijing and all its Eurasian partners, including Russia.

It is not surprising that the extent and grandiosity of the Russians’ search for a new identity has attracted the attention of a number of Western scholars. Several European and American books and articles competently present the program and its dynamics, offering astute judgments along the way. Russians return the compliment by drawing on Western writers to bolster their case. Indeed, one can only smile to see how a strategy that is designed to turn Russia away from Europe and the West has been grounded in works by Western thinkers.

Pride of place among Western sources goes to the pioneering Anglo-Scottish geographer Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947), author of the so-called Heartland Theory and the founding father of geopolitics. Writer after writer in this collection strain to demonstrate how the concept of Greater Eurasia fulfills or at least refines Mackinder’s predictions. Groping for international justification and vindication, they also cite approvingly the works of B. Bizan in Copenhagen and especially the Australian-born English theorist, Hedley Bull (1932–1985). Besides the natural desire of academics to festoon their writings with footnotes, these many citations suggest that the authors themselves feel a lurking insecurity about their sweeping arguments.

Russian geographers may cull the writings of foreign authors in search of support for their theses, but they realize that works by members of what they call “the English school” provide at best a fragile platform on which to erect their theoretical palaces. They also know that the writings of Marx offer no support for the Russians’ new theses, even if they wanted to invoke them, for the simple reason that Greater Eurasia is more a political construct than an economic fact. And so some new theory of history and geography is called for.

Happily, A.B. Savchenko and V.A. Vorobieva of the Russian Presidential Academy of Public Economy and Public Administration pop up with precisely what is needed. In their contribution to the volume, they divide human history into three periods: the pre-machine age; the machine age; and the digital age. Russia, they postulate, became a European power during the pre-machine age, while seeking an opening to the West. It also stretched eastward then and became a Pacific power. Then, during the machine age, Russia abandoned Alaska and shifted its focus to Siberia’s maritime zone and to Central Asia. Now, as the digital age dawns, Russia sees its destiny in Greater Eurasia as a whole.

In the face of such highfalutin theorizing about the digital age, it is puzzling that the main initiatives that our theorists propose to bring Greater Eurasia into being are solidly those of the machine age, and that the theory as a whole is grounded on old-fashioned and pre-digital modes of transport. Politics may be the rationale and driver for the notion of Greater Eurasia but Russia cannot become part of it without vastly expanding its railroad and road links with the Pacific. Little attention is devoted to polar sea routes and air links are scarcely mentioned. Meanwhile, V.Iu. Maslov of the Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering bluntly calls for the construction of two new rail lines across Siberia to supplement the existing Trans-Siberia Railroad. Part of one of these—Baikal Amur Magistral (BAM)—already exists, but to complete it and add a yet more northern “polar” route would be a task on the scale of Stalin’s most grandiose project.

Maslov and his colleagues believe in scale. Maslov’s excited vision calls for “large complex projects” in every sector, e.g. massive investments by the state. No slave to mere balance sheets, this professor of economics and engineering insists that these vast outlays be undertaken “not for immediate commercial profit.” How, then, will they be financed, and how will the public respond to staggering expenditures that may bring psychological payoffs to some part of the population, but no rubles?

Do not fear, Maslov soothingly assures us, for all will turn out well in the end. After all, didn’t President Roosevelt’s expensive Federal Highway Program help lift the U.S. out of the Great Depression? Sorry, Esteemed Professor, but it was war, not highways, that lifted America out of the depression, and it was President Eisenhower, not Roosevelt, who launched the Federal Aid Highway Act…in 1956, years after the Great Depression had ended.

In order to manage these and other “large and complex projects,” the city of Novosibirsk must be transformed into, in Maslov’s words, “the main intellectual center for the reconstruction of Asian Russia.” This shift of Russia’s economic and political center eastward, we are told, should be a “national task,” one that will in turn inspire millions to settle in unpopulated zones of Siberia. Thanks to this happy development, the vast reaches of Siberia will become a salubrious place to live and raise families, and not merely a bridge to Asia. Indeed, the wilds of Siberia will be transformed into “a laboratory of the future, a huge testing ground for new solutions: institutional, managerial, and technological.”

Pesky details complicate this rosy vision. On the one hand, people today are not flocking to Siberia, but leaving. Recent reports reveal that Russians are abandoning large zones of eastern Siberia and their places are being filled by immigrant Chinese renters. If, however, millions of Russians were to pick up roots and settle there, would this not further depopulate Russia proper, where there already exits a demographic vacuum that is being filled by migrants from Central Asia? Hence this astonishing paradox: Putin and his Russian nationalists refer condescendingly to the now sovereign states of Central Asia and the Caucasus as “Russia’s near abroad,” but their own vision for a Greater Eurasia will, if implemented, reduce Russia to the status of an ethnic extension of Central Asia; in short, “Central Asia’s Near Abroad.” It is no surprise that the globe-spinners who are touting their vision of a Greater Eurasia are as silent on these issues as they are about financing for their “large and complex projects,” and about Russia’s flagging demographic presence in Siberia itself.

But since when must fantasies be trimmed to fit reality?

Suppose that the Greater Eurasia project does move forward, in whole or in part. What is likely to be its impact in specific world regions? In some areas of the globe its implications would be clear. Across Southeast Asia, for example, it would lead to a substantial Russian military build-up in the form of naval bases and airfields. Its effects would also be visible in the major charm campaign that Russia would direct towards India.

More problematic would be its impact on Eastern Europe, Ukraine, the Baltic countries, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. On the one hand, as Moscow redirects money and attention towards Siberia and the Asia-Pacific region, these areas of former Soviet control would no longer be Russia’s prime geostrategic focus. Increased expenditures in Siberia and Asia—not to mention Putin’s growing commitments in the Middle East—would limit the Russian government’s ability to invest in these regions, while the Russian private sector is unlikely to take up the slack.

However, it would be a serious mistake to conclude that Putin would be so enraptured by his vision of Greater Eurasia that he would become indifferent to the former Soviet space. After all, he relies on the expansion of the EEU to strengthen his hand when dealing with Beijing. Paradoxically, even as Russia looks to Asia, Moscow will persist in its effort to expand its control in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. We can expect Putin to remain true to form. In order to expand the Kremlin’s hegemonic control, he will opportunistically exploit all signs of weakness in what his government both anachronistically and sinisterly calls its “zone of privileged interest.”

Central Asia and the South Caucasus warrant our special attention in their own right, because they pose a special challenge to Moscow’s Greater Eurasia project. Like other prospective members of the EEU, the countries of Central Asia (and Azerbaijan as well) have the potential to add to the size and “heft” of the new trade zone and thereby strengthen Moscow’s bargaining power as it seeks greater parity with Beijing and its SCO. For this reason, Moscow is bound to intensify its pressure on Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to join the EEU. Will America and Europe respond to these provocations and, if so, how?

Yet at the same time, Russia is clearly unprepared to accept Central Asia as an equal geostrategic partner. Having embraced Mackinder’s view that the key to power is access to the world’s oceans, Russian strategists dismiss the notion that Central Asia is a crucial heartland and define it instead as a marginal “rimland,” destined to be subordinated to those countries with access to the world’s oceans.

This theoretical argument rationalizes a blunt and inconvenient geopolitical truth: that Russia demands that the main continental transport corridor should run through Siberia and not through Central Asia and the Caucasus. L.B. Vardomskii of the Academy of Science’s Institute of Economics makes this clear in his contribution to the Greater Eurasia volume. In other words, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Georgia are not Russia’s partners in transport, but its competitors in a zero-sum game.

This is not a new posture for Moscow. Long before talk of a New Silk Road arose in 2005, Russian officials made clear at conferences in St. Petersburg and Urumchi that they opposed east-west routes running through Kazakhstan and Central Asia and demanded instead that the existing Trans-Siberian Railroad serve as the main link. But the Chinese blithely ignored the Russians’ demand and proceeded with their preferred routes through Kazakhstan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus.

What, then, do apologists of Russia’s Greater Eurasia theory see as the destiny of Central Asia and the Caucasus? Having bucked Mackinder on the heartland issue, they then revert back approvingly to that English thinker and declare that Central Asia will become “a repository of raw materials and energy resources.” But isn’t this precisely the fate from which all countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus are straining to escape? Without exception, they all seek to reduce their dependence on natural resources and to diversify their economies through technology and modern agriculture. This puts Russia’s Greater Eurasia strategy on a collision course with all Central Asia.

To make matters worse, at least one of the contributors to the Greater Eurasia volume, A.B. Likhacheva, implies that Siberia will become an exporter of water to Central Asia. This cockamamie idea, first broached in Moscow a generation ago and promptly killed by Russian environmentalists, calls for the large-scale diversion of water from Siberian rivers to Central Asia and Xinjiang. In reviving it now, this author bluntly calls Russia’s water a “power factor.”

Drawing back from these regional particularities, let us ask whether Russia’s fashionable Greater Eurasia strategy has any chance of ever being implemented. Impeding China’s role will be the ongoing and inevitable slowdown of growth in that country. But it is likely that China will continue to attend to its mounting domestic needs and to its own priority security projects, and that it will continue to project its power abroad. Russia, by contrast, will increasingly have to deal with its undiversified economy, unresolved centrifugal forces, rising domestic dissent, and a transition of power at the top. The only way it can make the investments in Siberia that the Greater Eurasia project requires will be to curtail investments elsewhere, a sure-fire formula for domestic unrest. Otherwise, Russia as part of Greater Eurasia will continue to languish, perhaps benefiting from one or two transport projects but otherwise reaping few of the benefits of which it dreams today.

Thus, the gap between China and Russia will grow. Whether or not China and India will reach some sort of accord is unknown. But Moscow will surely continue to court India on its own, signaling to Beijing that it has a backup plan if Greater Eurasia lapses. Under any circumstances, Moscow’s inevitable and very public demotion to the status of China’s junior partner will not go down well among Russian nationalists.

Meanwhile, members of the Eurasian Economic Union will continue to pursue their own political and economic interests, even as they attend EEU meetings and pass resolutions. And, significantly, even as part of Greater Eurasia they will seek to reassert the principle of balanced relations among world powers that informed their strategy during the first two decades of the new century.

Andrei Kortunov of the Russian International Affairs Council and one of the more sober authors in the Greater Eurasia volume, argues that the success of Greater Eurasia depends ultimately on the future of the China-India relationship. He rightly points out that China and India are fundamentally different, that they don’t understand each other, and that the only hope for accord is that a division of labor between authoritarianism and democracy can somehow be worked out.

In conclusion, Kortunov offers the slim hope that Russia, having embraced the Greater Eurasia project at its outset, can somehow craft a positive outcome. But he is skeptical about Russia’s ability to do so, given its own internal constraints, whether economic, social, or political.

“What is the alternative?” Kortunov asks. “Can Russia return to Europe?” On this important issue he is skeptical, citing Moscow’s clear preference for authoritarianism at home and abroad. Although Kortunov doesn’t say it, he foresees a future in which his homeland is once more cast adrift between East and West, searching for an identity which Mackinder once seemed to offer but which in the end is denied to Russia. In a prolix yet clear statement on Russia’s place in the world, Kortunov declares that China and India comprise the “inner crescent” of Eurasia and that all the other countries, including Central Asia, the Middle East and, significantly, Russia are “limitrophic” states. But checking the dictionary, we find that “limitrophic” means “adjacent to” or “bordering.” In other words, Kortunov demotes his country to the status of a borderland.

Given the realities of Russia today, this should not be surprising. The concurrent emergence of demographic, ethnic, institutional, technological, educational, medical, and political challenges impose heavy claims on an economy that is already weighed down by international and military commitments. Worse, the process of transforming a hydrocarbon-based economy to a modern technology-based economy has barely begun. It is no accident that Russia’s most advanced technologies are to be found in the military-industrial sector.

Further, one must stand in amazement that a country whose government claimed for 74 years that economics define life should now simply ignore economics as it sets forth its expansive new geopolitical strategy. But this volume offers not a single word on how the Russian economy will pay for the immense investments required to build Russia’s place in Greater Eurasia. Either the authors are economic illiterates, or they know they are marching down an economic blind alley and cannot say so.

No statement in this curious volume will stun readers more than the bland assertion by V.M. Kotliakov and V.A. Shuper of the Institute of Geography that Americans and Europeans are wrong to allow domestic concerns to determine foreign policy. On the contrary, they claim, foreign policy should determine domestic policy. This is precisely what the Greater Eurasia project calls for. It is equivalent to the nonsensical claim that a house can be built from the roof down. Besides being the ultimate refutation of Marxism, it marks the final rejection of even the pretense of being a democratic society.

Is there an alternative? There always is. At the 2017 meeting of then-President Nazarbayev’s Astana Club in Kazakhstan, Sergei Karaganov, one of Russia’s leading champions of the Greater Eurasia movement, returned again and again to his favorite subject. Finally, President Nazarbayev, in a statement later released publicly, stated that,

“As president I have access to many, many maps. But not one of them shows anything identified as “Greater Eurasia.” Does this exist? Is it real?

By contrast, I know that Central Asia exists and that it includes five countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan. I know that we share a common past, a common culture, common values, and common understandings, and that we also face common threats. Furthermore, I know that we all know each other far better than outsiders know us.”

Coming from someone who is identified as a founding father of the Eurasian Economic Union, this statement cannot be ignored. It suggests that the real needs of many of the states that Moscow would like to gather together as part of its geopolitical stratagems are best satisfied by entities that are closer to home and over which they can exercise a degree of control. It suggests that economic development can best be achieved through cooperation and collaboration, not sovereignty-limiting megastructures, and that many states of Eurasia would rather build their international ties by starting with the foundation and not the roof.

S. Frederick Starr is the founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, a joint transatlantic research and policy center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Institute (AFPC). He previously served as Vice President of Tulane University, President of the Aspen Institute, and President of Oberlin College. Starr is a cofounder of the Kennan Institute in 1974 and its first director.

In August of 2008, Russia used separatist proxies in South Ossetia to attack Georgian villages near the city of Tskhinvali. The attack provoked a Georgian military response, which Moscow used as a pretext for a largescale invasion and occupation of Georgian territories.

Russia did not embark on that military adventure simply to occupy Georgian territories. It had a more important strategic goal in mind—to prevent an eastern enlargement of NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin calculated, correctly as it turned out, that the Russian commitment to keep Georgia out of NATO was much greater than the Western commitment to Georgia’s security.

Ten years ago, Russia invaded Georgia, burning and ethnically cleansing the villages of the Tskhinvali region and occupying and recognizing the regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow’s immediate objective was to limit the sovereign right of Georgia to resist the corrupt, backward, and technologically obsolete Russian political and economic system, and, instead, join the transatlantic political, military, and economic alliances of advanced economies. The invasion followed the April 2008 NATO Summit, where Georgia and Ukraine were given a commitment, but no actual mechanisms and timeframe to become members of NATO. The Russian Federation saw this as a window of opportunity to prevent the process.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation has attempted to control the countries in its neighborhood at all cost and punish those countries who resist Moscow’s will. In 2008, the United States and the West did not do enough to deter Russian aggression – this mistake must not be repeated.

Trans-Caspian Forum on Capitol Hill

The Trans-Caspian East-West Trade and Transit Corridor is a regional integrator, trade facilitator and viable transit connector between Europe and Asia. Comprising of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey to the west, and Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to the east of the Caspian Sea, this corridor brings together more than 200 million strong market and 400 billion in overall trade while connecting economies of the European Union and China along with access to Russia, Iran, Pakistan and India.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute invites you to join members of Congress, Congressional Staff and the delegates from the Trans-Caspian countries, to discuss emerging geopolitical importance of the bourgeoning energy and transportation network, as well as U.S. commercial interests arising from it.

]]>caci@afpc.org (sdriscoll)Forums & EventsThu, 17 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000The Long Game on the Silk Road: US and EU Strategy for Central Asia and the Caucasushttp://www.silkroadstudies.org/publications/silkroad-papers-and-monographs/item/13280-coming-soon-the-long-game-on-the-silk-road-us-and-eu-strategy-for-central-asia-and-the-caucasus.html
http://www.silkroadstudies.org/publications/silkroad-papers-and-monographs/item/13280-coming-soon-the-long-game-on-the-silk-road-us-and-eu-strategy-for-central-asia-and-the-caucasus.html

Black Sea Security Roundtable

On October 2, 2017, CACI hosted a roundtable, off-the-record discussion on Black Sea Security. The lunch discussion aggregated specialists from countries in the Black Sea region. Speakers at the lunch included American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow Stephen Blank, Margarita Assenova of the Jamestown Foundation, and Central Asia-Caucasus Institute Senior Fellow Mamuka Tsereteli.

The Black Sea Security Roundtable began with a discussion on the conversation’s newfound international relevance. In analyzing the current state of the Black Sea from the Georgian perspective, Minister Victor Dolidze emphasized that Georgia wants to be involved. He continued that Georgia views security in the region as its number one priority and wants to contribute to NATO efforts and interests, including the maritime, land, and air components of NATO Black Sea security efforts. The minister also emphasized that Georgia was currently the biggest non-NATO contributor to NATO missions and remains committed; however, they are interested in drawing a grand joint strategy to maintain stability and security with concrete Georgian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian contributions. In addition to these multilateral efforts, Georgia would like bilateral talks with other Black Sea bordering countries on the subject of trade, human rights, and security partnerships.

Inquiries were made to the minister regarding Georgian efforts to counter Russian encroachment into Georgia and the Black Sea region. According to the minister, despite the international efforts led by the U.S. against Russian aggression, Russian behavior, such as ethnic cleansing, and destruction of Georgian property has not stopped. It is therefore important to the Georgian people that their government promote policies that help the citizenry during this time, such as increased visa mobility, free health care to occupied territories, and hepatitis elimination efforts.

Following the minister’s remarks, AFPC’s Stephen Blank discussed hard security matters in the region and Russia’s role in the region. According to Dr. Blank, Russia has attempted to intimidate Black Sea countries by using “soft-power” techniques like imposing economic pressure and implementing information warfare. Despite Russia’s Zapad exercises and anxiety over the Baltic, Russia is building up its military in the Black Sea and in Ukrainian territory. The country is developing and implementing Anti-Aircraft “bubbles” in Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean, Armenia, and Turkey to cut off Ukrainian naval access to the Black Sea. Additionally, Dr. Blank argued that Russia may be engaging in GPS “spoofing” in the Black Sea to affect maritime trade, which could create a potential opportunity for Russia to engage in piracy in the region. While the tactics in this grand strategy are flexible according to Blank, Russia’s long term goal is to restore Soviet-level influence in the world, threatening the post-Soviet space and Europe. By inciting ethnic conflict and discord in western countries, Russia can project power and promote its strategic agenda. To Dr. Blank, the greatest threat to Russia is not a NATO invasion, but rather the democratic integration of Eurasia and the increased spread of NATO influence. Dr. Blank concluded that with increased western influence in his backyard, Putin would have to give up his imperialist dreams.

A question was raised on Georgia’s NATO cooperation and how it adapted to Turkey’s role in the region. According to Minister Dolidze, they have adapted well and coordinated effectively with NATO. The minister emphasized that Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia’s trilateral relationship built the basis for the modern Black Sea situation. Other participants, including Ms. Assenova, argued that Turkey’s recent coup and political changes have become the main problem for further cooperation in the Black Sea among these countries, and perceptions of Turkey have changed for the worse in the Balkans and Bulgaria. Islamist trends and the oppression of political opposition within Turkey threaten the Baltic countries. According to Ms. Assenova, the mistrust was a significant obstacle in forming a flotilla between Turkey and Bulgaria.

Ms. Assenova commented that Romanians are known for their cooperative and innovative efforts. Generally, Bulgaria’s intentions are aimed at maintaining the status quo, as the government is extremely weary of undertaking any security efforts independent of support from NATO or the Black Sea community. In order to align more closely with NATO, Bulgaria needs to modernize and de-Russify its military, replacing engine refurbishment efforts with Russia with analogous efforts in Poland, replacing Russian jets with other foreign jets, and the modernization of the Bulgarian flotilla. For these endeavors to be successful, Ms. Assenova argued that the Bulgarian defense budget must increase substantially, and profound cooperation between NATO, Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania must occur.

The roundtable then shifted focus to Black Sea security being one of the top priorities for Bulgaria. It was suggested that Bulgaria remained committed to NATO obligations; however, they emphasized the need to avoid abrupt change and act with caution, as the stakes were slightly higher for Bulgaria due to the 500,000 Russians in the region, Bulgarian investment, capital, and tourism are contingent on these Russians.

A Turkish participant emphasized the country’s status as a committed NATO ally and its plans to reestablish a Turkish influence in the Black Sea within the constraints of its current political climate. Turkey’s Black Sea influence is not static. According to Turkish representatives, there is strong Turkish support for China’s Belt Road and Initiative (BRI), and they hope China and India can begin to trade in the region. Turkey does not want to isolate other regions from the Black Sea, only emphasize the significant role Eastern Mediterranean Security plays in the Black Sea. Other participants also mentioned that this situation may serve as a good opportunity to improve the relationship between Turkey and the West and to unite against Russia. Turkey is optimistic about the Black Sea’s future, and supports any efforts toward long term security and stability.

Other participants assessed that Azerbaijan considers itself a part of the region. Energy security remains their priority, and they strive for secure energy flow from their Caspian resources to Black Sea countries. For this reason, a clear understanding of the security situation is important to them. They expressed concern over the ambiguity of the U.S. and EU positions in the region and inquired as to whether there were more flexible formats of achieving stability than working through the political and legal constraints of NATO. To Azerbaijan, the clock is ticking: there is no physical barrier to Russian encroachment into Georgia.

Those at the roundtable agreed that now is the time to pay attention and devote resources to the Black Sea. There are wide-reaching trade implications to any developments in this region, as well as geopolitical implications of increasing Russian aggression and influence. Multilateral authority via NATO, US, and Western involvement may be necessary to protect and unite smaller regional players together for the common goal of stability. Future talks and further bilateral relations are also necessary to this end.

On November 7, Svante Cornell testified at a Joint Subcomittee Hearing on "Russia: Counterterrorism Partner or Fanning the Flames?" convened by the Subcommittees on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade and Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The video of the event is available from the following link, with Dr. Cornell's statement at minute 47.